Timothy S. Harlan, M.D. tells you what to eat and when in order to eat healthier, lose weight, and keep it off - permanently!

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Red Lobster

I
will admit that I wasn't looking forward to going to Red Lobster.
I haven't been in one for years, because the last time I went the
food was so terrible. I was, however, heartened by my experience
at Ruby Tuesday. My expectations
were fully met.

The odor is that of frying fish. It doesn't smell terrible,
just greasy. Even so, it is a clean restaurant and the staff is
friendly although the service is pretty terrible.

Eat

The best dish by far is the Garlic-Grilled Jumbo Shrimp.
The dish is about a dozen large (not jumbo) shrimp on skewers
that have been grilled. The seasoning is good and the shrimp aren't greasy. It comes with
Wild Rice Pilaf that's OK at best but instead you can order a baked
potato that's pretty good. Couple these choices with their
seasoned broccoli and you have a pretty good meal at 402
calories and only 8 grams of fat.

Almost any of the grilled or broiled fish with the rice pilaf or a baked
potato are good choices. There's salmon (of course), flounder,
tilapia, rainbow trout and blackened catfish. If you like crab legs,
these are going to be lower in calories and a good choice as well.

The side salad is good and can be chosen as an alternative to having
the broccoli, but the only dressing worth eating is the red wine vinaigrette. The
light ranch is OK but a bit bland. You can also get asparagus instead
of the broccoli but there's an extra charge.

Another good selection would be to have a Shrimp Cocktail appetizer
along with a side salad and a baked potato. That's only 317
calories and having a little butter and sour cream on the potato would
be fine. (You might try moving to having sour cream on your baked
potato with some black pepper. It's lower in fat and calories
and has all of the rich flavor.)

Don't Eat

While the food above wasn't great, it was good enough to recommend. And
even though it goes without saying that you should avoid the fried food,
I'll say it anyway -- don't eat the fried
food.

Some things that looked promising were not. You've heard
me say that pizza can be healthy and a good choice in restaurants. Not
so here. This is a very thin crust described as “crisp” topped
with cheese, tomato, lobster and shrimp. It is a greasy mess. The
crust is anything but crisp and it tastes like it came out of the deep
fat fryer.

My patients tell me all the time that they are eating better
by having salads. As many of you already know, this is not
necessarily the healthy choice in a restaurant, and the Seafood
Caesar Salad at Red Lobster is a great example. Drenched
in greasy tasting Caesar dressing and topped with equally
greasy croutons and a ton of dried out parmesan, this is (like the pizza)
just a mess of a dish. Ugh!

I had high hopes for the Broiled Seafood Platter. They let me
substitute the stuffed flounder with broiled flounder and the rest of
the dish has bay scallops and shrimp scampi. The flounder was OK
and (as noted above) you can order it as a meal. Do that. Because
the scallops, while tender and tasty, were swimming in butter. So
was the shrimp scampi, but even worse the flavor was overpowered with
both salt and garlic. A senseless waste of good shellfish.

All in all about what I expected. Pretty bad food, but there are
a few choices that taste decent enough that if you had to go to Red Lobster
you could eat better than you might think.